Georgia Counties and Historical Facts

Georgia County records can vary vastly from county to county both in quality and quantity. Some are already very carefully maintained and some have been substantially abused and overlooked. A number of Georgia records have purely disappeared. For genealogists performing research in Georgia you will find no effective replace for an on-site research of county court house records. For Definitions of all court terms see the Genealogy Encyclopedia

Georgia Map of Counties

Georgia Counties – Land records were recorded with the Clerk of the Superior Court in each county. Probate records were recorded with the Clerk of the Ordinary Court, as were marriages. Most civil court cases were handled completely by the Superior Court.

In 1777 the first Georgia counties were formed. However, they only covered a small part of the present-day area that is Georgia. Soon, more Native American land was acquired, leading to the formation of new counties. Then land records began to be recorded by each county’s superior court clerk. The clerk of the ordinary court, meanwhile, kept records of marriages and probate records. The superior court handled most civil court cases.

Most of the county records for Georgia are available at the Georgia Archives in bound volumes, on microfilm and in collections of original, loose records. See also a list of links to county and county seat government run websites.

List of Georgia Extinct Counties

Georgia has counties that no longer are in existence. They were created by the state, provincial, or territorial authorities. Many of these counties were created and disbanded during the Nineteenth century; county boundaries have modified little since Nineteen hundred in the vast most of states. These counties should be researched when performing ancestors and family history research. Pay attention where the courthouse records went to if the county was abolished or consolidated with some other county.

St. George, St. Mary’s, St. Thomas, St. Phillip, Christ Church, St. David, St. Matthews, St. Andrew, St. James, St. Johns, and St. Paul parishes were all dissolved in 1777, and all of other counties were established later.

List of Georgia Counties with Burned Courthouses

The damage to Georgia courthouses drastically has a impact on genealogists in each and every way. Not only are these types of historic buildings torn from our lifetimes, so are the files they stored: marriage, wills, probate, land records, and others. Once destroyed they are destroyed permanently. Despite the fact that they have already been put on mircofilm, computers and film burn up too. The most sad side of this is the reason why virtually all of our courthouses are destroyed as a result of arsonist. However, not all records were lost. Numerous Georgia counties have endured a loss of records due to courthouse fires, floods, and theft.

Baker – Flood – 1925, 1929.

Baldwin – Fire – 1861.

Bartow – Originally Cass Co. – . Courthouse destroyed by enemy fire during War Between the States in the 1860

Bulloch – Fire – 1864.

Burke -Fire – 1825, 1856.

Calhoun – Fire – 1888, 1920.

Carroll – Fire – 1927.

Charlton – County site then at Traders Hill. Destroyed by fire in 1877. Present site fire 19 February 1928.

Cherokee – Fire – 1865, 1928.

Clayton – Fire – 1864.

Clinch – Fire – 1856, 1867.

Cobb – Fire – 1864.

Coffee – Fire – 1898, 1938.

Colquitt – Fire – 1881.

Crawford – Fire – 1829.

Dade – Fire – 1865, 1895.

DeKalb – Fire – 1842, 1898.

Dooly – Fire – 1847.

Douglas – Fire – 1896, 1957.

Early – Fire – 1896.

Echols – Fire – 1897.

Emanuel – Fire – 1841, 1855, 1857, 1919, 1938.

Fayette – Fire – 1983

Forsyth – Fire – 1973.

Glynn – Storm – 1896.

Gordon – Storm – 1888.

Greene – Town burned by Indians in 1787.

Gwinnett – Fire – 1871.

Habersham -Fire – 1856. Blown up in 1898.

Hall – Fire – 1851, 1882. Tornado in 1936.

Harris – Set fire by Federal Troops in 1865, but quickly extinguished.

Paulding – Fire – The county has no record loss from fire. The old courthouse burned in the 1920s, but the new courthouse had already been built and the records transferred. The reason that there is record loss comes from when Polk County was cut out of Paulding and Dallas was made the county seat in 1852. They didn’t bring the records with them, and their whereabouts are unknown. The books that still had blank pages in them were brought to Dallas and still exist. This means the marriages start in the 1830s, the deeds in the 1840s, and probate records in the 1840s.